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Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020

Did the 2017 tax cuts benefit foreign investors in US companies?

Jacob Alabab-Moser, Gigafact Foundry
yes

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act cut the U.S. corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%, a boon to U.S. companies' shareholders—many of whom live outside the U.S. Total foreign ownership of U.S. stocks, including shares held by foreign governments and businesses, was estimated to be about 35% in 2017.

The higher profits reported following the tax cuts (and the boost the tax cuts gave to the value of those companies because of higher future profits) benefited those investors just as it did holders living in the U.S. Estimates of the exact impact and its duration vary. The nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy calculates the benefit in 2020 from the lower rates to be $38.3 billion—more than the benefit it estimates for the bottom 60% of U.S. individual taxpayers.

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